Awakening the Slumbering Serpent
by magicalferret
Summary: After a unerving kidnapping, Hermione's world crumbles before her eyes as she dicovers new things about herself, family, and enemies.
1. Chapter 1

{A/N- sorry about all of the spelling and punctuation mistakes. my spell check is currently not feeling well. i'm too lazy to go back and correct the capitalization mistakes too. any way, my computer hates me and wants to ruin my story so it's all its fault!!!!!! pionts wildly and computer EVIL!!!! ANYWHOO... here is chapter 1 of A.T.S.S ( i had to throw the 'T' for 'the' in or it spells something eles.... ;) }

**_AWAKENING THE SLUMBERING SERPENT_**

Hermione stood on the platform, in the middle of giving Harry and Ron hugs, the engine's steam drifting around them.

"Don't you boys for get to write! Oh, Ron, I'll ask my parents if i can stay at your home, when was it you said i should come?"

"In about 3 weeks, Mione." the red hed answered. 

"Ronald!" Mrs. Weasly's vioce rang out above the student's chatter. Ron's ears whent a bit red around the edges.

"Never a moment's peace with that woman." After saying his goodbyes again he finally jogged over to his family. Hermione and Harry intended to to through the barrier to the regular train staition with the Weasly family until Ron signaled for them to go with out them. Apparently, some one had let Pig out of his cage, as he was now dive-bombing vairous students and was resisting all attempts and spells to get him back in the cage. Hermione's eyes swept the crowd and found a certain blond laughing with his friends, or minnions ,or whatever, and pionting at the bird, elbowing eachother.

"The bird's going to have a bloody heart attack one of these days if he carries on like that" Harry nodded to the hyperactive owl that was now pecking a poor first year on her head repetably. Hermione playfully swatted his shoulder .Together they sauntered through the barrier, pushing their carts lazily to the curb to wait for their families to pick them up. They made idle chatter for a while, mostly about the upcomming summer and school year, both avoiding the subject of You-Know-Who's return to power. There would be lots of letters to discuss that in later. the few minutes tirned into an hour. they wwere sitting on the bench, drinking sodas theat they had purchased from a nearby vending machiene.

"Okay, this is rediculus. Where are our par-rides?!" Hermione mentaly slapped herself for almost saying 'parents'.

"Dunno." Harry looked around,ignoring the slip-up, "Hey, there's a pay phone over by the vendining machiene, I still have some change left over."

"Sound's good to m- Harry, look over there!" Hermione pionted to a white limo that pulled up to the curb aways down from them.

"Wonder if a movie star's in it, like Pamila Anderson!" 

"Dream on, Harry, dream on" Hermione snorted.

"I dunno, it looks expensive." Harry squinted his eyes as if it would allow him to see through the tinted windows.

"Harry,you prat, it is a limo._ Ofcourse_ _it looks expensive_!"

Whilst they were debating,the dirver's door opened and a young chouffure got out, holding up a sign.

"What's on the sign?" Harry asked.

"Who ever the limo driver is paid to pick up, you didn't know that?"she questioned.

"Never seen a real limo before."

"Oh..." Hermione felt pity for Harry, even though it was just a vehicle. His relitves deprived him of so much.She, herself had never been in a limo, but she had seen a ton of them in her life time.Hadn't the Dursly's ever taken Harry downtown ? " Anyway, on to the payphones!" As she started to head for them, Harry grabbed her arm, to hold her back.

"Mione, it's for you."

"What's for me?" She said, staring at him.

"The limo."

"What?" She looked up at the man holding the sign. **_Hermione Granger_** was printed neatly on it in big black letters.

"Whoa." She was shocked, but then turned to Harry,"Hold on, Harry." He watched as she made her way over to the driver. He could tell she was cought off gaurd when he bowed to her.She began to talk to the man, her expressions changing from confused, to surprise. She pionted to Harry and the driver nodded. A large smile spread over over her face as she jogged back to Harry. "Need a ride?" 

"Are you sure it's okay with the driver?" He asked, surprised.

"Oh,yeah, I asked." She laughed as she wheeled her cart over to the limo, waving for Harry to do the same.

Both of them were excited and Hermione gasped once they got in.

"Wicked!" She exlaimed, pionting to the mirorr roof with electric lights that changed color, out lining it. She plopped down on the back seat, and Harry the seat across from her, twards the front. For some unknown reason, they laughed at the distance beween them. The limo shook a bit when the diver got in and closed the door. Harry jumped when the wall in back of his head started to roll down. By the time it had rolled all the way down, revealing the front of the limo and the driver, he was sitting to Hermione'seft. 

"G'evenin'. Th' name's Oswald Wood, but me mates call me Oz. Sorry 'bout th' d'lay." The man's face reddened a bit. He was good looking, to say the least, his hair was a sandy-red, his eyes a nice shade of brown. He looked like he was in his 20's. Hermione couldn't shake the feeling that she knew him, she was about to ask, but Harry beat her to it.

"Do you have a brother?" He too, couldn't but help wonder why he looked familiar. 

"Yeah, Oliver.Why ya ask?" 

"Oh! We know him! How's he doing?" 

"He's fine." Oz quickly changed the subject. "So! Where we takin' ya, mate?" He asked Harry. Harry gave the address and they were soon speeding down the street.

"Hey, Mione, look at this!" Harry had found a compartment full of sodas."Are we allowed to have these?" he called up to Oz.

"Help ya selves!" Soon theyhad tried to open evey compartment in the limo. They found more drinks, sweets, a radio, and a small television. One compartment next to Hermione seemed to be stuck though, but they ignored it. About half an hour passed when they felt the vehicle slow to a stop.

"This is it! Nice t' meet ya." 

"Same here." As Harry got out, the door to his house flew open. 

"HARRY POTTER! WHERE WERE YOU!? WE TOOK TIME OUT OF _OUR OWN BUISSY LIVES_ TO DRIVE TO THAT RUDDY STATION,AND YOU TAKE A LIMO HOME? WHAT, ARE WE NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU,BOY? _GET-INSIDE-NOW_!" a middle aged, balding man in his bath robe fumed, his face a deep pruce color. Hermione couldn't stand it any longer. she dug in her purse an pilled out black sunglasses and pinned her hair in a messy pony tail with a rubber band, then got out of the limo and stormed up to Mr. Dursly. " AND WHO ARE _YOU?" _he yelled. 

_ " I_, sir, am... am Jenifer Gracey. Did you know your nephew here was waiting for an hour for you to pick him up?" Hermione put on her best McGonagall voice," I, who was on my way home after an _exagusting_ day of buissnes meetings, took pity on the boy and gave him a ride home in my limo. He told me you run a drill company, I was intrested, for my father is _David Gracey, the head of Safe-T-Drills Corperation_." Mr. Dursly paled quite a bit," We are currently looking to buy a small time company. Harry here has told me wonderful things about your company. I had half the mind to call my father. But after seeing _your behavior_ all I can say is I hope not all of your employies are as pig-headed as you! Harry, if he treats you like this again, call me, you have my number." Hermione stuck her nose in the air and struted back to the limo. " Home, Mr. Wood, i have _quite_ a few things to tell my father!" she slammed the door in the face of an extreamly pale Dursley, A smiling Harry waved them off.

As soon ans they had turned the corner, Hermione burst out laughing.She had read some where an article about drilling companies in Surry ( a very boring read) in her docter's office.

" Was tha the real 'arry Potter?" Oz asked. 

" Um, yes." she answered

" Huh. Tha' was a really nice thing ya did back there." He smiled.

"Thank you, Harry has told me horror stories about his Aunt and Uncle, and not to mention his poor excuse for a cusion!"

Oz chuckeled. A while passed in silcence. Oz turned on the air conditioning and unbuttoned his shirt cuffs. " Its' stuffy in 'ere" 

"Mmhmm." Hermione's tired reply was barly audible. She glanced lazily out of the window. " The stars are beautiful tonight..." she thought out loud. All of a sudden a sun roof directly above her opened. 

" Thank you." She said as she looked up front. Oz was adjusting the air vent when she saw that he had a black tatoo on his fore arm. She could only see about a third of it as the unbuttoned shirt cuff rode up his arm. Oz didn't seem like he was the tatoo-type of guy. He was pretty clean cut. Now intrested , she rubbed her eyes and leaned forward in her seat. All of a sudden she reconized it. It was a bone jaw with a snake coming out of it.

A death eater was driving her to God-knows-where and he now knew Harry Potter's address.

Hermione gasped at the reolization.

"S'matter?" Oz asked.

"O-Oh," Hermine laughed nervously, " I-I just reolized I need to go to the loo. Do you mind pulling over?" She lied, trying to smile bashfully. His eyes met hers in the rearview mirorr.She felt they stared a bit to long for comfort. After a second or two he said he would, as soon as he found a petrol station, they were running low on gas. She pretended to stare at the stars, grasping her wand in her pocket. A faint 'pop' niose drew her attention to the small compartment beside her that refused to open earlier.It was full of peppermints and lemondrops.Her favorite candies.She had one of each. A few minutes passed when they stopped at a gas station.

"Thank you" She hoped he couldn't tell her smile was fake. She got out and whent around the outside of the station and passed where the bathrooms were located. She stuck her wand hand up in the air. Just as she hoped a loud BANG sounded and a huge purple double-decker bus now stood in front of her, just as she had hoped. After the busguy had made his speach, he aked for money. _Oh no!_ she thought. She had no wizarding money. As she was arguing with the bus driver about the money she was cut off by some one as they were running twards her.

" Listen! I will pay you back! I need to get out of here! There's a dea-" 

"SIS! SIS! There you are! Quit buggin' th' poor man!" Instantly she fell silent. _What?! _

_ "_Th' car is fixed, don' worry." he said to her, "Quietly, go an' get in it an' stay there, okay?" He said kindly. Her feet turned atomaticly and she walked in the direction of the limo._WHAT IS GOING ON?!?!?_ When she passed Oz, she gave him a death glare. 

As she rounded the corner, she heard him explaining to the angry Knight Bus driver 

" I'm sorry! It's me Sis, she's no' right in th' 'ead." This agirvated her even more. She wanted to scream for help, run, do _somthing_! She shook in concentration and anger, but still, her mouth remained shut and her feet moving twards her glamourus prison.

Hermione walked slowly, and soon she heard Oz's footstept next to hers. 

" Give me ya wand." he said acting as if he was talking to a regular person, not one he was turning over to the Dark Lord.She shook again, trying to resist as her hand dipped into her pocket and did his bidding, cold sweat formed on her brow and the back of her neck as the shivering increased.

" Don' try t' fight it, ya will only tucker your self ou'." Oz gave a small smirk and took the wand from her hand. She had never felt so naked in her life. She quit fighting. She was defensless. Once back in the limo, she found she could moveon her own will. Oz was right, she was tired. She felt like she had run two miles. She tried the door, knowing it would be locked. She was right. When Oz got in the car, she summoned up strength to get up and stmble over to the opoening to whack him on th e head, shouting varius curses at him. He rolled up the window after subduing his attacker by steping on the accelerator, causing her to toumble back wards. Still, she continued to shout swears at him that would have made her mother faint if she heard her little girl say such things.

Hermione was tiring herself even more, but she had to do somthing! She couldn't just sit there and allow herself to be kidnapped with out- wait. Kidnapped, she was being KIDNAPPED! Would she ever see her family again? What about Harry and Ron? She was only 16... Hermione started to pound on the windows with her fists. Maybe someone outside would see her. She started screaming for help when they slowed down at a stop sign. No one could hear her. No one could see her. Despretly,she looked around for something to break the window with. there was nothing. She opened compartment after compartment, untill she found the one that held glasses for the sodas. the glasses weren't that thick, but it would be a start. She raises a glass, ready to strike when she reolized she would have to strike more than once in order to shatter the thick window, and that would mean niose. Then, she remembered the radio.it took a moment for her to figure it out, but she finally turned it on to a rock station and blasted it. she swayed a bit when the driver, obviously surprised,steped on the accelerater a bit further in shock. Once she felt the speed stabilize, she raised the glass again and struck as hard as she could.

The force of the glass hitting the window rushed painfully up her arm,The glass shattered upon hitting the window. A small shard of it was lodged in her thumb, yet the window remained unscathed. She screamed in frustration rather than in pain as she pulled out the shard. She made a makeshift bandage out of the ripped hem of her shirt an used the rubberband from her hair to cut off the circulation to prevent more bleeding. Hermione couldn't stand the sight of her own blood. She could watch all of those surgery programmes, but her own blood made her nautius. Looking away, she searched the rest of the compartments.

One of them held ice for the glasses, and burried in the ice was an ice scoop. Hermione spent 10 minutes stabing the window with it, her arm was starting to go numb, and the window wouldn't crack. It had been charmed. She tried all of the other windows, including the wall behind the driver and the over head mirror. Nothing. She was trapped. Turning down the radio, she curled up into a ball on the floor, utterly exgughted, and cried her self to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

{A/N: Many o' thanks to Irish Green ( thankyou very much!), Pineapplecube( Thanx, spell check sucks! WOOT!) and to Heven ( I'll try!! :D) I'm tired, it's checks watch 1:16 and 22 secondsinthe morning. this chapter isn't that good, but i really wanted to right something . CAUTION: SUCKY SONG FIC IS IN THIS CHAPTER!!!!! the song is" Falling Down" by Story Of The Year. ( i just bought their CD today!!}

{P.s this might be the last chapter for a month, since I am leaving in 2 days to travel all over Europe for 21 days with a group called People2People. sry! ( hey, if you live in Europe, maybe I'll see ya!)}

**_Awaking the Slumbering Serpant: Chapter 2_**

Hermione awoke to the loud metalic click niose of a car door shutting and the floor jerking ( she would later know that it was the limo accelerating). It took her awhile to reconize her suroundings, and for the pain to set in. Her head was throbbing from the crying, her thumb was a nasty dark purple fromn the rubber band, and to top it off, she couldn't turn her head to the right because she slept on it funny.

Groaning in both annoyance and pain, she unwrapped her thumb to look at the damage, trying not to retch. It was a clean wound, not that deep. A scab was starting to form over it. She decided that she could safely take off the rubber band, not to mention she hated the feeling of her thumb tingling. It's color turned from a mauve to a red with in seconds and a tiny trickle of blood seeped through the scab. Quickliy, she wraped it back up and moved to get some ice from the mini cooler. She sat on something odd, and found out it was a shard of glass. Luckily, her bum was safe. Turning around, she saw what was left of her failed attempt to escape. Strangley, all the glass, except the one she slept on, were in a small waste basket, and the scoop was on the seat to her left, the sun reflecting off its shiny surface. Sun? Wait, it was daytime! God, how long had she been in the bloody limo anyway? 

Her thoughts were cut off by an extreamly painful throb from her wounded didget. Great. The feeling was coming back into it. She had read somewhere that meditating was a good way to seal your cuts and scrapes, of course, only magicalfolk could do it, but you would have to be immensly focused on it. She had never tried it, but now was as good of a time as ever. She layed down on one of the long seats and imagined an ice sculpture form out of a puddle of water, a dead tree bloom flowers, things healing, rebuilding them selves, and her thumb felt as if some one put a branding iron on it! She screamed in surprise. Again, she was jurked backward because of Oz.

_ Oh yeah, he can hear be from back here. _she thought as she craddled her hand. Oz was a bit odd for a death eater. For one, he was jumpy, weren't they suposed to be like Mad-eye Moody, and never be surprised? Second, why didn't he attack Harry? Well, he didn't know it was him, Harry had his back facing Oz the majority of the time, and when he finally knew it was him, he might have been afraid, 2 against 1 and all that. Maybe Voldemort had told all his little followers that he was the only one allowed to do Harry in. Third, Oz was strangley nice to Hermione. A nice Death Eater? What was up with the guy?

After about 20 minutes, Hermines lower abdomine started to hurt, she _really _needed to get to a bathroom. QUICK. How was she going to pull this off?!

Frusterated she popped two peperments into her mouth. She decided she should give talking to him a try. She slid over to the wall/window and knocked on it softly, so as to not startle him and go flying backwards.

"Wot?" His vioce seemed to go right through the wall, as if it wasn't there. It occured to Hermione that he must have had heard every syllable she had screached at him the other night. It made her feel a little bit better.

"I really need to go to the bathroom." She heard him mutter a spell and the wall rolled down. She stared at him in the rearview mirror. Should she hit him?

"Ya can try t' attack me, ya can't ge' through t' me." He smirked, " So, wus' th' problem?"

"I-need-to-pee." she said as if explaning it to a todler, "What, you didn't hear me the first time?" Her nerves were on end.

"What, do ya 'spect me t' trust ya? Jus' let ya go t' run away?" He countered.

"Fine. I'll just sit back here and piss myself!" she shouted in frustration. Instantly, she regreted it.To her surprise, he started laughing. For somereason, it really pissed her off.

"God, you are anoying!" She muttered. Another slip up. Oh God, he was going to curse her. She was so stupid! Was he going to kill her right off? It only made him laugh harder. 

"If that isn't the pot calling the kettle black, I don't know what is!"

" I need a bathroom." She almost whispered. Hermione had to admit she was scared of Oz, he was after all a death eater. He might be playing with her. She shivered imagining all of the things he and his buddies were going to do to her. Again, she wonderd if he was going to kill her right off, or if he and the other death eaters would toy with her, using the other two Unforgivables and other dark magic. God, were they going to rape her? She suddenly was aware that she was silently crying. She would never see her family again. Or her friends or-

"Hold on," He pulled over to the side of the deserted dirt road, turned around, and pionted his wand at her. Her eyes grew wide and did the only thing she could do, shuther eyes, and brace herself. 

She didn't hear the spell, but when he turned around, she found that she didn't need to go to the rest room anymore. He had helped her. 

" Why?" She blurted out.

" Cudn' ave' ya make a mess in me limo." Oz replied, eyes on the road.

" No, not that. Why are you being nice?" Should she have used the word 'nice'? Was he going to take offence, was he going to act like a regular death eater now? Had she just made a huge mista-

" Me orders are t' no' lay a 'and on ya." His eyes never left the road, and it seemed to make Hermione nervous. Suddenly, the wall rolled up. A sense of relief and horror (a very nasy feeling if combined) rushed to her stomache. What was going to happen to her? There was little to absolutly NO change of her surviving. It felt like her brain shut down, She felt absolutly nothing, the gaping hole in her stomache was forgotton. she was breaking down. It happened a couple of times to her over the years, like in the third year, with all of her classes, or in the first year, when Ron made that awful comment about her, and other various times. IT was like her body was suddenly switched on to auto-pilet.

Hermione layed down on one of the long seats and looked up and the changing lights. She was in the middle of making a list of all the gruesom things that were probably in her future such as Voldemort using her as bait to lure Harry to God-knows-where, being_ Crucio-_edshe was in a stupor like the Longbottoms, or ( if she were not in her mental breakdown mode, this would have made her heart stop) using Verasitum to force her to reveal every thing about Harry's weaknesses and The Order of the Pheonix, when she randomly noticed a small cut in the electrical tubing she must have made the other night.She stared at it or a second or two, when all of a sudden, she broke out of her trance. She had cut it! It was not protected like all of the other breakable things in the limo. How could she use this to her advantage?

_Fire_. 

She could start a fire to distract O- the dirver. He shouldn't hve a name, he wasn't human. He followed a monster. He was a monster. The proof was on his fore arm. The fire would distract _the driver_. Hermione dug in the waste basket to find a large piece of glass and rapped another torn piece of her shirt around the part she would hold. She couldn't use the metal scoop because of the risk of herself being electrocuted. She was lucky last night. she had not stuck it hard enough to breakthrough the cleartubing to the wires. She tried to make a cut, but found the tubing to be pretty thick, not imossable to cut, but it would take a while. She also noticed that it had made a tiny squeak niose when she had tried, and she needed to cut harder, that meant louder squeaks. 

" Ugh! I can't take much more of this stupid silence!" she said loud enough so O- _THE DRIVER _could hear it. Hermione turned on the radio loudly, but not as loud as the other night, but good enough to cover the squeaks. It was the same rock station as the other night. She listend to the ending chords of a song, then set to work as a new song came on.

**Now i can taste the war** **that I've been fighting.**

The first sentence caught her attention. She now was litteraly caught in the war that she and her friends had been fighting since thier first year at Hogwarts.

**Start to fall but I'm still standing here behind the wall of dying faith.**

**I can't forget the fight that's growing stronger.**

She wanted to run away from it all, but couldn't. She had to be strong. But,it was getting tougher and tougher, for many people had fled to join 'The Cause', as many people called it nowadays, and become monsters. Why people would do it was beond her understanging. Why people would join a cause to become more powerful, only to show how weak they really are, just did'nt make sense to her.

**Face to face with hopes of longer days to build on something we should save.**

The Order knew it would take a long time to build up the force to finally crush the Dark side. They just wished they had more time. It was getting to Harry. She had gone up to his prefect room ( as Dumbledore had finally decided to allow him to become one) many a times to comfort him, sometimes he cried , while she stroked his head in her lap.

**I stand alone.**

**I'm on my own.**

**My hands will bleed.**

She could relate. It sometimes seemed ( such as the situation she was in at the moment) that she was alone. Sometimes she felt that way at an Order meeting, even though she was surounded by people on her side. She was confused. Hermione had decided that she would join Ron and Harry and become an Auror once they graduated next year. They were going into combat. They would be the ones who would bleed and becovered in the blood of their enemies.

**I'm holding on to what is gone**

**What's left for me?**

She clung to the memories of the safe days, or atleast, the days where she was totally ingnorant about the danger she and the people around her were in. The days before Hogworts. If she could relive her life, she would still choose to go to Hogworts,of course, but the days of saftey, or thinking she were safe were once she wished she could have forever, but they crumbled before her eyes long ago. 

**I'm falling down.**

**But I should find my strenth in this: a light that burns to reconnect my heartfor what it's ment to give.**

At times like this, she felt like she was spiriling down into a pit of darkness, like she should give up. But, then,some how, she would find the little flame in her sould that would push her to try to succede. To do what she needed to, to do what was right. It was what she was made for. To help others.

**I stand alone.**

**I'm on my own.**

**My hands will bleed.**

**I'm holding on to what is gone**

**What's left for me?**

**Walk.****Fall. ****Stand againso i can...**

**Walk.****Fall. ****Stand againso i can...**

**Walk.****Fall. ****Stand againso i can...**

**Fall.**

But It felt like she was going around and around in circles. Like she was getting absolutly nowhere. She knew she was doing the right thing, but something was missing, some unknown part, that would make her life whole again was not with in her grasp. even worse was the fact that she had no idea, whatsoever, what the piece was.

**I stand alone.**

**I'm on my own.**

**My hands will bleed.**

**I'm holding on to what is gone**

**What's left of me?**

**_H2O ,GO!_**

The last line of the song (which made no sence) snapped her out of her thoughts, that were a little deeper than she would have liked them to be, and made her reolize that she had been so rapped up in the song and hadn't began to cut. 

Hermione carefully sliced the tubing, inwardly cringing with ever sound it made, to the last thrums of the guitars and the beginings of a new song. After about 3 minutes of work she had finally cut through the tubing and mutiple wires, causing the radio to suddenly quit.

"I hate that song," she quickly muttered to trick the driver that she had purpously turned the radio off.Next, she swiftly cut a couple of the plastic rings that held up the lights so she could handle them better. She knew she only had a small amout of time to get a fire started before the driver noticed anything, like the fact that the didgital clock in the front had stoped displaying the time.

Hermione got some ice out of the cooler and it melt onto the carpeted floor to get it sopping wet. then she took the ends of both wires and pushed them onto the water.


End file.
